L is for Let's Have Some More!

A Bit of a follow-up to the previous posts, but once you've got the Phidal's and a few Kinder or other figures on a given theme, they rapidly get their own 'zone' and become a side-collection, so I guess that's what we're looking at here - the bulking-out of two side collections!

 

Encanto again, from Jakks Pacific, I think we may have seen these in a B&M shelfie post sometime over the last 12/18-months, but clearly I weakened when they reappeared in TKMaxx for a pound-twenty a figure! They look like the stampers (coming to the Blog soon) which are everywhere at the moment, but are just stand-alone figurines with very thick bases, for little fingers to manipulate, and weight against fluffy surfaces so they stand up, I suspect!

While I think these, The Nightmare Before Christmas figures, were from B&M? We've been looking at these on and off for several years now, Jada's line of Nano Metalfigs, with various franchises already seen here, I though what is probably a seasonal-special 'whole' set was worth grabbing at the time.

 

I know I've said it before, but it's worth saying again, or I wouldn't say it! I really love these, not because I used to be a small-scale collector, but because the metallic paint is so . . . . thick, deep, lush? I dunno', it's like you can dive into the finish; you won't understand until you've handled a few, but they are very different to anything else I can think of, and among that rarefied class of hard-metal figure which includes the Monogram WWII/Vietnam sets and the equally uncommon Kenner Star Wars die-casts.

N is for The Nightmare Before Christmas

Mentioned a couple of times in recent weeks this particular Phidal Busy Book is more up our street, being the movie-related set of Tim Burton's mad creations from the film I still haven't seen, but A) keep meaning to and B) feel I have, because of the amount of merchandise and/or clips I've seen over the 32 years, since it hit the theatres!

Cover; this was actually in a supermarket, as part of the Christmas stock/promotion, with the kids' annuals in a card display stand, between isles, Sainsbury's, I think? And must be a new title in the range. Scale/size is a bit meaningless with this one, but they are fun figures nevertheless.

 

The properly bad guys - Oogie Boogie, the rambling bag of bugs! Lock (a poorly disguised Loki doppelgänger), Shock and Barrel (geddit - lock stock & barrel), Oogie's trick-or-treating sidekicks.

 

 

The barely good guys - Zero the dog, Jack Skellington (American spelling!) and his love interest Sally the witch, a creation of Dr. Finkelstein's - another poorly disguised doppelgänger; for Dr. Frankinstien!

 

The rest - the aforementioned and evil, Dr. Finkelstein, a rather dodgy Santa Clause, known to the locals of Halloween Town as 'Sandy Claws' and the two-faced Mayor. I forgot to shoot them from the rear, and that's your Nightmare Before Christmas characters from Phidal!

 

A year ago this wasn't in the Tag list, now it's got three Tags and about five mentions, so there's a definite attempt to re-boost it somewhere, for some [commercial] reason - expect a sequel, a streaming thing or a director's-cut!

S is for Spooky, Shifty, Shelfies! Asda

While several of the supermarkets have had large (or 'larger') displays of Halloween stuff, and both Lidl and Aldi have carried their when-it's-gone-it's-gone stuff for a few weeks, the only one which was worth a photo-shoot, was Asda, and these are they! I was surprised by those stores which didn't carry any or much Halloween stuff; WHSmith, The Works, Waitrose and Dunelm to list a few.

 

We looked at these skeletal animals, and their incongruities last year, I seem to recall, but there were a bunch more this year, mostly more realistic, but the rendering of recognisable ears in 'bone' is the daft part, which also serves to remove some of the horror or 'disturbance' from them!

Tree hangers, or hangers for whatever you want to hang this stuff from!

I think these light-up, I can't remember!

Various skeletons, these were bigger than Action Man/GI Joe size I think, at about 14 inches? With various treatments of over-brushing, exhumed body's clothing, glow-in-the-dark plastic etc. . . were common to many stores.

Closer to 12-inch action figures, these seem to be the same or similar to those sent by Brian B, as shelfies, and presented as the same light-string, but with just the one visible in the window.

I don't know if there is a sequel in the pipeline, I know there is a new Beetlejuice in production, and both seemed to feature in several supermarket/large store displays, here it's the Nightmare Before Christmas which is providing the licence!

J is for Just Play

Bit of a quickie, I bought this a while ago in B&M, although I'm sure it's findable elsewhere (Smyths, The Entertainer?), and while not specifically Halloween related, being The Nightmare Before Christmas, there is a horror aspect to it, and, well, that's it really!

 

Large vinyl figurines from new name here, Just Play, non-articulated solid lumps, I haven't opened it, so that's yer'lot, I'm not sure if this film has had a sequel, or a serial treatment on one of the streaming services, as the movie's years old now, well 30-years old if the packaging is anything to go by, but there seems to be a background of renewed interest in this Disney franchise (is it just the 30th anniversary?), and it's both Christmas-related and Halloweeny!